Pages

Monday, September 11, 2017

Interpreting the Manuscripts - My Process

It has been quite a while since I have posted anything or
done any period cooking. It's summer and that means lots of time out of doors
with the family before school starts. However, I have been asked to teach a
class on my method of interpreting period recipes at a meeting or a future
event. In lieu of a post on cooking, I thought I would create a post regarding
the steps that I take when I do an interpretation. Any feedback is welcome.

The first step is to locate a recipe that you are interested
in interpreting. For me, many of those are the recipes from Two fifteenth-century cookery-books : Harleian MS. 279 (ab
1430), & Harl. MS. 4016 (ab. 1450), with extracts from Ashmole MS. 1439,
Laud MS. 553, & Douce MS. 55 Thomas Austin published by
Oxford University Press, London 1888. I am blessed with having a copy of this
book in hardback, one of the very last gifts my mother gave to me prior to
getting ill with congestive heart disease and passing twelve years ago. This
book is very special to me and each recipe that I interpret is a memory of
cooking with my mom from the time I was old enough to stand at the stove and
stir a spoon. At the time I received this edition I didn't know *how* to
interpret these recipes. What took me many years to teach myself I am hoping to
pass on to you in a few paragraphs.

When I first started interpreting recipes I gave myself some
ground rules.

The first is not to interpret based on what others have
written. This is easier said than done, as I have discovered several times that
what I have read and interpreted is vastly different from what others have
done.

The second rule is to find ingredients which can be
purchased locally and would fall within a reasonable budget should the recipe
be created for a large (100+) feast. Oftentimes, when an ingredient is difficult
(or impossible) to locate or is prohibitively expensive to purchase for me,
and/or ultimately for a large group of 100 diners, I will research a suitable
substitute for that product. This has the benefit of creating a
"mostly" period recipe but substitutions can change the final product.

The third rule I adopted was to make "sample"
sizes of recipes that could be easily adapted to feed a larger dining crowd.
This meant that I had to spend some time in researching typical portion sizes
for catered, large group events.

My last rule is to use sources as close to the primary
source as I could find. Most of the sources I use are secondary sources because
obtaining primary documentation, that is, original works that have not been
interpreted, analyzed or evaluated by another person is impossible for me.
However, secondary resources can be found relatively easily nowadays and
when I use a secondary resource I tend to bolster that information from
multiple secondary resources.

What are primary, secondary and tertiary sources for
research? Primary sources of information for research are most often the
original documentation often times associated with the time period you are
researching. These documents or artifacts have not been analyzed,
evaluated or interpreted. An example of a primary document would be an
original manuscript.

Secondary sources used for research are primary documents or
artifacts which have been analysed, evaluated amd/or translated. They have been
created after the creation of the primary source they are based upon.

TARTLETTES. XX.II. X. Take pork ysode and
grynde it small with safroun, medle it with ayrenn and raisons of coraunce and
powdour fort and salt, and make a foile of dowhz and close the fars
þerinne. cast þe Tartletes in a Panne with faire water boillyng and salt, take
of the clene Flessh withoute ayren & bolle it in gode broth. cast þerto
powdour douce and salt, and messe the tartletes in disshes & helde the sewe
þeronne.

Tertiary sources consist of information which has been
collected from primary and secondary sources and is subject to further
analysis, interpretation or evaluation. Sometimes secondary sources can
also be categorized as tertiary.

Take veal, boiled and grind it small. Take hard boiled eggs and grind it
with whole prunes, dates cored, pinenuts, raisins, whole spices and powdered,
sugar and salt. Make a little coffin, fill them and bake and serve it forth.

Ingredients

500g veal

6 whole pitted prunes

8-10 whole pitted dates

100g raisins

50g pine nuts

2 hard boiled eggs

1/2 tsp mace

1/2 tsp white pepper

1/2 tsp nutmeg

6 whole cloves

Method

Slice the veal into strips and boil it with a dash of
vinegar and a pinch of salt. Hard boil and cool two eggs. While they boil,
mince the prunes, dates, raisins and pine nuts and mix in a bowl. Mince the
veal and mash the eggs when they are done, and add them to the bowl. Then add
the spices and mix the lot thoroughly.

Using your favorite short crust pastry, after first greasing
the muffin tray, line the molds with the pastry. Spoon in the filling, and
cover with more pastry.

Cook in a medium oven for 25 minutes (fan forced convection)
or a bit longer in a conventional oven. When the pastry is golden brown it is
done. Serve it first (not fourth, that's too long to wait!).

Once I have located a recipe that I am interested in interpreting
I read it several times before I begin the process of breaking it down. I want
to make sure that I have a good understanding of what I have read. I
think this is where many cooks begin to start to assume that a set of
instructions on a medieval document will have a specific end result. I have
been surprised several times that my final interpretation was not what I
assumed the end product would be like. This is part of the reason I do
not research other interpretations at this point. Just like I did with
locating a recipe I set up some ground rules and assumptions for myself in
regards to how to interpret a recipe.

Cooks of the time period that I am researching may not have
been be able to or did not have time to write down their own sets of instructions.
Instead what is written in any documentation from the period are a set of
instructions as witnessed by or spoken to the author of the manuscript. This theory is based on my assumption that before everyone
was required to learn how to read or write, many specializations (cooking for
example) were passed from a Master, to a Journeyman, to an Apprentice either
orally or through example--the actual work. In order to become
specialized you devoted your educational experiences to that specialty. It is
my assumption that medieval cooks most likely had only rudimentary experience
with writing but were by no means "illiterate" in their vocation.

It is also an assumption that the amount of work required to
run a larger household where such instructions might have been written and were
necessary was time consuming and that there would not have been enough time for
an individual to do their daily tasks and write a manuscript.

Lastly, there is the assumption that much like today, a
medieval cook's recipes and techniques were considered "trade
secrets" and that they would not have been readily written down for fear
of sharing those secrets. Who does not have a grandmother who won't give you an
entire recipe but always leaves a little something out??? Mine did and to this
day I am unable to find that ingredient in my grandmother's lemon cake that
made it so special to me.

I do my very best to make absolutely no assumptions on what
the final product will be, but instead will cook the instructions that I have
interpreted as they have been written in order to best replicate the dish that
the original author may have intended. Also, if I have run across another reconstruction of the
recipe I will not allow that preconception to influence my understanding of what
I am interpreting.

Part of the difficulty that I had interpreting recipes from
the books was a lack of understanding what I read. In almost every recipe that
you will run across from period you will find a word or two that you do not
understand. Fortunately, the internet which I use extensively in my
research has opened up a world of understanding for me. Our example recipe
today is Tartelettes from The Forme of Cury, which we are fortunate
enough to have a copy provided by the British Library of the original
manuscript (above). In the event that I would have been unable to locate
this copy of the manuscript, there are also multiple secondary sources
available online or in printed form as well.

Here are some links to some of my favorite sites for period
sources. Please note that there is a lot of crossover between sites and that
some links may be broken or no longer viable. This is certainly not the
be all and end all of the list, nor is it in any particular order for me. These
are the sites I find myself most frequently visiting when researching.

Tartlett - Take pork y-sode and grynde it small with saffron, medle it
with ayren and raisons of coraunce and powdre fort and salt and make a foile of
dowgh and close the fars (the)einne. Cast (the) tartlette in a panne with fair
(broth?) boillyng and salt take of the clene flesh with oute eyren and boile it
in gode broth cast (the) powder douce and salt and messe the tartlet in
dishes and helde the the (broth?) thereone

This interpretation contains several terms I am unsure of;
y-sode, ayren, raisons of coraunce, powdre fort, foile of dowgh, fars, a word I
think might be broth but these old eyes can't make it out clearly enough to
determine what it is. This is when it is time to turn to other resources for
help. In this case, I know of at least two other interpretations of the
above recipe. The first is located at project Gutenberg.

TARTLETTES. XX.II. X. Take pork ysode
and grynde it small with safroun, medle it with ayrenn and raisons of coraunce
and powdour fort and salt, and make a foile of dowhz and close the fars
þerinne. cast þe Tartletes in a Panne with faire water boillyng and salt, take
of the clene Flessh withoute ayren & bolle it in gode broth. cast þerto
powdour douce and salt, and messe the tartletes in disshes & helde the sewe
þeronne.

While I am left with some confusion about a few of the
culinary terms, I have at least one question answered--the unknown word that I
was unsure of and thought might be broth is water; "Cast (the) tartlette
in a panne with fair (broth?) boillyng". The next step is to define
the words I don't understand. You will note that I have (the) in parenthesis
several times in my interpretation. This is because is the middle English
abbreviation for the word "the" something I learned in earlier
research and it appears several times in the manuscript instructions for
tartlettes.

I have my favorite locations for researching medieval
culinary terms I may not understand. These include in no particular order
the following sites, which have proven to be immensely helpful. As part of my
interpretive process I will research the culinary terms, etymology of a word,
and cooking techniques if I am unsure of them.

sew - a Middle English word referring to a broth or
liquid ranging from juice through gravy to stew

Researching the definitions lead to two more areas to
research before I can start on interpreting the recipe. The first area is
powder fort, a strong spice powder which
will play a large part in the final outcome of the dish in regards to the
flavor of it. The second is the "foile of dowgh", which will
also play a part in the dishes final outcome. The best location to look for
this information is in the Forme of Cury, so that is where I will
start.

Neither Powder-forte nor the dough instructions are included
in the Forme of Cury. They are referenced several times, however in the
manuscript and the recipe reference below for Loseyns gives the clue to how to
make the dough. Loseyns are dough that is boiled in broth and served with
cheese. Because it is similar to the dough used in the tartlettes I am assuming
that the dough that is required in this recipe is similar to the dough used in
the recipe I am researching.

Loseyns. XX.II. IX. Take gode broth and do in an erthen pot,
take flour of payndemayn and make þerof past with water. and make þerof thynne
foyles as paper with a roller, drye it harde and seeþ it in broth take Chese
ruayn grated and lay it in disshes with powdour douce. and lay þeron loseyns
isode as hoole as þou mizt. and above powdour and chese, and so twyse or
thryse, & serue it forth. Forme of Cury (England, 1390)

Loseyns. XX.II.IX Take good broth and do in an
earthen pot, take bread flour and make thereof paste with water, and make thin
foils as paper with a roller, dry it hard and boil it in broth take ruayn
cheese (most likely a semi-soft cheese made in the autumn from cow's milk)
grated and lay it in disshes with powder douce and lay theron loseyns boiled as
whole as you may and above powder and cheese, and so two or three and serve it
forth.

The next step is to find out what powder-forte is. It
is commonly believed to be a blend of spices which include strongly flavored
spices such as pepper, cinnamon, cloves, cubebs, galingale, ginger, grains of
paradise, long pepper, mace and nutmeg. The recipe that I found which I
liked best is LXXIII. Specie fine a tute cosse. from Libro di cucina/ Libro per cuoco (14th/15th c.)

The next step is to create my
interpretation of the recipe and to create the ingredient list. If you
have difficulty with the Roman numeral conversion (I know I did) the site I use
is found here. When I do my interpretations I try to
create a recipe that is easy to understand, so I write it in modern English
keeping the original interpretation above it. When I create the
ingredient list I am only doing so for a serving for two as if it were a main
dish served in any meal. I want the recipes to be easily scale-able so that
they can be increased from 2 to 4 to 8 to however many servings are needed. In
order to do this I needed to research quantity calculations for catering large
groups. From the research that I did I have come up with this plan that I
use when creating large scale feasts: 1/4 to 1/2 cup starch, 1/2 to 1 cup of pottage, 1/2 cup simmered,
boiled or stewed, vegetables and approximately 1/4 pound of meat per dish per person.
This is the plan I use for any succeeding courses. Remember-we are
eating medieval serving up several dishes per course, and several courses in a
meal. Your diners can pick and choose what they wish to eat, and how much
they wish to eat of it, but for serving these are the portions that go out to
the table. Approximate serving sizes per table of 8 would be 2-4 cups of
grain or grain based dish (eisands or guissell), approximately 2 pounds of
meat, and 2-4 cups of vegetables and 1 1/2 loaves of bread. Some
excellent websites to get you started on researching for quantity cooking are
listed below.

49. Tartlettes - Take pork boiled and grind it small with saffron, mix it
with eggs and currants and powder forte and salt, make a thin sheet of dough
and close the stuffing there in, cast the tartlettes in a pan with fair water
boiling and salt, take of the clean flesh without eggs and boil it in good
broth, caste therein pouder douce and salt and mess the tartlettes in dishes
and held the sauce there on.

Ingredients List

Boiled Pork - ground

saffron

eggs

currants

strong spice powder

salt

dough - flour, water

salt

broth

sweet spice powder

Fortunately this recipe doesn't
contain any difficult to find or impossible to get items, however, if it did
the resource that I would use to locate an acceptable alternative would be
the Cook's
Thesaurus. This resource has been invaluable to me especially when
looking for alternatives to fish! Fresh fish is difficult to locate where I
live and some ingredients which were commonly enjoyed, such as porpoise, are
illegal where I live. Alternatively, some items such as quail, squab or
pheasant would be prohibitively expensive to purchase even for a smaller event.
Whenever I substitute a medieval ingredient for something easier to
obtain or more cost effective I make sure to explain the reasoning behind it in
my blog post.

Once I have created my
interpretation and have a list of ingredients that I am going to use I start
creating the modern recipe. Remember-I'm only cooking for two people,
despite the fact that I usually use my family and friends and their friends as guinea
pigs to taste test and could be taste testing up to seven or eight people ;-)
This is why we often have spoon wars and arguments over who gets the last bite.
I only need a small amount.

Recipe

1/2 pound ground pork - remember the
recipe calls for pork that has first been boiled and then minced (ground
small). Assuming a quarter pound of meat per person two people would be
1/2 pound of ground pork. Half of which (1/4) will be made into the
stuffing and the other half will be cooked in the broth ( take of the clean
flesh without eggs and boil it in good broth). To make the broth that is
needed, boil the pork in 1 cup water or stock. I would use chicken or a
mix of 50/50 beef and chicken because I do not normally have pork stock on
hand.

Pinch of saffron - for two people
you probably only need two or three strands, because you do not want the
saffron flavor to overpower your stock.

3/8 egg beaten - the reality is
that an entire egg is going to be too much egg for the small amount of stuffing
we are making. So what I would do is beat the egg and add just enough of it to
the mixture to make a good stuffing making note of it in the interpretation,
or, I might separate the yolk from the white and use the yolk only.

1 tsp. currants - 1 tsp. of Currants
for a quarter pound would mean a little over a tablespoon of currants for a
full pound of meat. This is where I use the phrase "or to
taste" because some folks might like a little more currant with their pork
and others (like me) would like less-wayyyy less--as in half that amount for me
thank you very much!

1/8th tsp. Powder Forte - another
"or to taste" area. Usually for a quarter pound of meat, 1/4th
of a tsp. of spice is too much, but you still need some flavor, so an 1/8th of
a tsp. would work here, and if it is expanded out that would 1/2 tsp. of spice
for 1 pound of meat.

1/4 tsp. salt - Salt is flavor,
and this might seem like a lot of salt to add to 1/4 pound of meat, however, if
you were to scale this up, that would be 1 tsp. to 1 pound and that is the
amount of salt that most people are used to adding to their meat.

1 cup broth - if you have boiled
the pork in water you have already created a flavorful broth. On average, 1 cup
of soup is the amount served at a large catered event, hence 1 cup of broth. If
you are using store purchased broth you may not need additional salt, however,
if you have made your own stock or are using the broth made by boiling the pork
you might need to add salt to taste.

1/8 tsp. sweet spice powder -
again, this is "to taste".

For the dough - we are looking to make basic eggless pasta or noodle
dough. Use your favorite recipe or you can use the one below

1 cup flour

1/4 cup water

1/4 tsp. salt

Boil the pork in the water until
thoroughly cooked, drain the pork reserving the broth. Take half of the
pork and add eggs, currants, salt and powder forte. Please note, I beat
the whole egg and then added enough egg to the pork to make the stuffing stick
together easily. I know...how do you get 3/8th s of an egg??? Set the
stuffing aside and mix flour with water and salt to create your dough. As an
alternative, you could substitute won ton wrappers for the dough. I did!

To create your dough mix together
flour and salt and add water until it forms stiff dough. Turn the dough
onto a lightly floured countertop and knead for approximately 10 minutes, cover
and then allow it to rest for 20 minutes. After the dough has rested, roll it
out to approximately 1/16th of an inch thick and then cut into large squares or
circles as you desire.

Stuff the dough with the filling
being careful not to overfill and then seal the dough tightly. I used the
tines of a fork to make a pretty crimp on the edges. Drop into the broth; add additional salt and the
pouder douce and serve once they are completely cooked.

Converting recipe quantities seems
like a mystery but once you know the number of servings you wish to serve, and
you know how many servings the recipe you are using serves the conversion is
quite simple. To find
your conversion factor (the number that you are going to multiply or divide to
scale up or scale down) simply divide the desired number of servings by
the original number of servings.

For example, this recipe was created to make two servings as a main meal or up
to four as a side dish. The number of servings is 2, but I want to serve
8. I would simply divide 8 by 2 and my conversion factor is 4. The
converted recipe would then be:

2 pounds ground pork

Pinch of saffron

1-2 eggs beaten

1 tbsp. or more of currants

1/2 tsp. powder forte

1 tsp. salt

4 cups broth

4 cups flour

1 cup water

1/2 tsp. powder douce

If I have the recipe for 8 and I want to serve six, I would divide 6 by 8 and
the conversion factor would be 0.75. I would then multiply each of the
ingredients by the conversion factor of 0.75 to get the correct scale for six
servings. The new recipe would look like this.

Once I have created a recipe that follows the instructions I cook up my sample
batch and taste test it. I have hijacked people working around the house,
my kids, their friends, unsuspecting family members and the neighbors. If
the recipe can pass a modern taste test then I did well. I request
commentary and watch reactions. There have been a few times I have made
something that I or one of the taste testers did not enjoy. I make sure
to include that in my blog posts.

Sometimes I have to go back and tweak something based on commentary, which I
will do, making note of the changes. Once the interpretation has been
finalized, and *before* creating a blog post I compare with my peers.
This recipe is a great example of the reason to compare. The
instructions as interpreted create a broth with meat and meat filled dumplings.
One of my peers created a meat filled tart, while another created a dish of
dumplings with meat sauce.

When I am checking my work against my peers and I find that I have done
something vastly different from what they have created I ask myself several
questions. Where did I deviate from their interpretation? Why did I deviate? How does the deviation
impact the final interpretation? What was the deviation? Do I need to research
this further?

Finally having come to the end of the process I create a blog post. In creating
the post I attempt to include a little bit of history relating to one of the
primary ingredients as well as including the interpreted instructions into a
modern day recipe.

I hope that this post has given you some ideas on directions that
you can go to start interpreting your own recipes. I would love to hear your
thoughts, suggestions or ideas. Feel free to comment below.